Kate Dernocoeur, a graduate of a NOLS Winter Ski
course in 1973 and a Wilderness Horsepacking course
in 1974, couldn’t pass up the offer—it
was the expedition of a lifetime. In 1999, the National
Geographic Society asked her to join the first expedition
down the Blue Nile from its headwaters in Ethiopia
to the Sudanese border. They would trek 60 kilometers
of the river after it left Tississat Falls, 30 kilometers
south of Lake Tana in central Ethiopia; forge a path
across the highlands above the river (which would
be swollen by rainy season volume); and finally drop
their three 16-foot inflatable rafts into the water
for a 24-day journey down the Blue Nile.

Along for the ride were three world-class, hand-picked
oarsmen, two Ethiopian translators, a team of donkey
drivers, armed guards, and National Geographic writers
and photographers, including award-winning photographer
Nevada Wier and author Virginia Morell.

Dernocoeur, a former paramedic, mountain rescuer,
expeditioner and traveler in developing nations, was
selected as the team’s medic, but she says it’s
a final trait—gumption—that probably got
her onto the expedition.

“I found that my expedition mates were true
explorers—full time,” says Dernocoeur
of her co-travelers. “I found myself saying,
‘I’m just a mom with a mortgage!’”
But Dernocoeur’s qualifications are much more
than that—she’s a field-experienced EMT-P
and the author of “Streetsense, Communication
Safety and Control” (3rd ed). Her countless
columns and articles on emergency medicine go beyond
the literature often put out by doctors and nurses
who are not on the street to give a clear picture
of what it takes to manage an emergency.

Dernocoeur’s role on the expedition, she says,
“was to bring everyone out, after 30 days in
the remote terrain of backcountry Ethiopia, upright
and with an airway.” This last task would be
crucial: Of the others who had tried the journey,
many had lost their lives, and there were countless
obstacles along the way. Only two roads could be accessed
along the entire stretch of river, and, says Dernocoeur,
there was “precious little back-up if anything
went wrong.” In addition, most of the Ethiopians
they’d meet along the way would be seeing Westerners
for the first time. Atele Asseras, the head of a village
near where the expedition started, told the team before
they embarked that he had once been poised to shoot
a traveler along the river, lowering his gun only
when one of them waved. After hearing the story, members
of the expedition waved at everyone they passed.

Aside from a few high-stress moments, like a late-night
shoot-out between armed guards and donkey bandits,
and a questionable encounter with militia who didn’t
like the team’s paperwork, the expedition ended
without incident, becoming the first to complete the
journey.

Besides her medical work, Dernocoeur says there
were many times she harked back to the expedition
skills she learned at NOLS. For her, it was mostly
remembering the lessons she’d learned from Paul
Petzoldt about expedition behavior. “In camp,
for me, it meant pitching way more than my fair share
of tents, to enable the journalists to visit villages
in the best light of the day,” she says. “At
take-out, it meant looking for ways to help, and on
the drive home, it meant tolerating the bumpier seat
so the person with the sore back could have a smoother
ride. Anyone who has done a course with NOLS knows
the gig. It’s all wrapped up in that big, huge
concept called ‘EB,’ expedition behavior.”

In the end, Dernocoeur was just glad to have made
the journey. “When something comes at you, you’ve
got to be willing to take it on, to say ‘I can
do this,’ whether it’s participating in
a challenging rescue, traveling in a developing country
like Ethiopia, or sleeping in a NOLS tent for the
first time.”